Failure at Copenhagen

Activists, governments and commentators have pronounced the COP15 climate talks a failure. Despite official statements describing the talks as having reached historic conclusions, even the modest goals set out by wealthier countries were not actually achieved by the talks, which ended on Saturday 19 December.

Speaking to The Guardian, Fuqiang Yang, Director of Global Climate Solutions at the World Wildlife Fund, said that the talks had "ended without a fair, ambitious or legally binding treaty," while Nicholas Stern, primary author of the influential Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, called the result "a disappointment."

While many heads of state and delegates have tried to make a brave show of the outcome, the fact is that Copenhagen did not even achieve a legally binding treaty of any kind. What it did achieve was a decision to "take note of" an accord reached by heads of state towards the end of the climate conference. That failure to reach a legally-binding agreement was called "unacceptable" by South African Environment Minister, Buyelwa Sonjica and "fairly weak" by Vicky Pope, head of Climate Change Advice at the Met Office.

While the non-binding accord does suggest a two-degree limit on global warming (the target argued for by wealthy nations rather than developing ones), actual commitments laid down at the conference put the planet on a path to a three-degree rise.

From a Christian perspective concerned with good stewardship of creation, this conference and the small amount it achieved cannot be called a success. From a Christian Socialist perspective, concerned with the welfare of the world's poorest people (those who will be worst affected by the rise in sea-levels and extreme weather events that are the predicted legacy of climate change), it is an utter failure.

The best thing that has come out of COP15 has been the increased awareness of and interest in issues of climate change. As Christians and socialists we must continue to pray that the interests of the wealthy (and the industries that inaction on climate issues seeks to protect) do not continue to trump those of the weak and the poor of the world.

Jonathan Langley, 22/12/2009